Frequently asked questions

Please read this page carefully before you contact the author.

[About Tera Term]

Q. Where can I find the latest version?
A. You can find it at the following sites:
https://teratermproject.github.io/

Q. When will the next version be released?
A. See Tera Term home page.
A. Periodical release will be done once every six months, as February and November. This release may be delayed for any reason.
A. When critical problem like as security hole is found, new version will be released at the timing other than periodical release.

Q. Can a user use the Tera Term's execution programs and source codes at the user's place of business for commercial purposes?
A. No problem. Need not announce to us. Tera Term has been distributed under the BSD License.

Q. I want to participate in Tera Term development.
A. Anybody who would like to participate can participate. Please sign up to GitHub and contact the author.

Q. Can I utilize screenshots from Tera Term?
A. Please use at your own risk under license.

Q. EAR (Export Administration Regulations)
A. Tera Term includes modules made in the USA. As such, it may be subject to U.S. export control laws known as ECCN-5D002, cryptograhic software. Downloading it outside of Japan will be considered as re-export because the laws applies to re-exports.
Tera Term distributed on TeraTerm Project has been already finished the following.

A user is able to get the software without restrictions.
TeraTerm Project has been sent the e-email to the U.S. Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the ENC Encryption Request Coordinator.

When you download and use Tera Term, you must refer to above information, components and libraries at your own risk. You are solely responsible for compliance with Export Laws.
For more information, see the project wiki page "About EAR (Export Administration Regulations)."

[Basic usage]

Q. I can not connect to a host.
A. Please check the following things:

Network configuration of your PC. See Control Panel.
Can you use other network applications such as WWW browsers and ftp
clients?
Is the host name or IP address correct?
Can you connect to the host from other machines?

Please read message and confirm followings:

Invalid host: Connection destination was not resolved from host name.
Confirm that host name is valid and host name is able to resolve.
Connection refused: Connection destination does not up a service.
Confirm service status.
Connection timed out: No response from destination.
Check network, host startup, firefall, etc.
Network cannot be reached: Unable to reach destination.
Check network adapter settings of PC on which Tera Term is running, or route to destination.

Please ask the network administrator how to configure network properties.

Q. Tera Term automatically closes when I logout a telnet host. How to disable closing?
A. Turn "Auto window close" off in the [Setup] Additional settings "TCP/IP" tab.

Q. I want to connect to a telnet host, but a serial port is always opened when Tera Term is started.
A. Set "Default port" to "TCP/IP" in the [Setup] Additional settings "TCP/IP" tab.

Q. How do I connect to a host with dial-up TCP/IP (PPP)?
A. Before you run Tera Term, establish the PPP connection. In the case of Win 95, you should use "Dial-Up Networking".
After the dial-up (PPP) connection is established, run Tera Term. Enter the host name or IP address at the [File] New connection dialog box. If you don't know the name or IP address of the host, ask the network administrator.
In the case of PPP connection, the serial port is controlled by the PPP connection utility. Serial port functions of Tera Term are for non-PPP connections and nothing to do with the PPP connection.

Q. I changed setup item, but it is not kept. Exit Tera Term and start Tera Term, changed setup item value is restored to original value.
A. Tera Term does not save setup values automatically. To keep it, you have to explicitly save by [Setup] Save setup.

[Keyboard]

Q. How to set the Backspace or Delete key to work for the backspace function.
A. For the Backspace key, turn "Backspace key" on or off in the [Setup] Keyboard dialog box. For the Delete key, turn "Delete key" on (this may not work in some hosts).

Q. How to use numeric keys in normal way?
Q. I can not enter "/", "*", "-" and "+" by using the numeric keypad.
A. See "Numeric keypad".

Q. How to use F1-F4 keys as VT100 PF1-PF4 keys?
A. See "PF1-PF4 keys of VT100".

Q. F1 (or whatever) key does not work. How to configure the keyboard?
A. In most cases, I can not answer this kind of question because I don't know how the key works. If you know what character (string) should be sent or what function should be performed by pressing the key, you can make the key work by editing the keyboard setup file. Read Keyboard setup file.

Q. How to change the keyboard shortcut for the [Edit] Paste (Copy) command to Ctrl+V (Ctrl+C)?
A. See "User shortcut keys" and "Keyboard setup file".

[SSH]

Q. passphrase input box on SSH Authentication dialog can not paste by Ctrl+v key.
A. Tera Term does not support paste by Ctrl+v key, because of support for input control character by "Ctrl+some key."
To paste passphrase, use Shift+Ins key.

Q. I sent a file by SCP without specifying destination folder, but file was not saved to shell current directory.
A. SCP can not save to shell current directory.
Terminal emulator does not know shell current directory of remote side. If prompt indicate current directory, a text from remote side is only displaying. Current directory is not shown always, in some shell or setting. User is able to understand current directory because he construct in his head from prompt text, result of `cmd' command or result of `cd' command.

[Miscellaneous]

Q. What is "Tera Term extension interface"?
A. It is the interface between Tera Term and add-on modules. An add-on module is provided as a DLL which can hook Tera Term user interface functions, setup functions and Winsock functions. At the point of Mar 1998, no add-on module has been developed. Projects of developing add-on modules which support ssh and SSL are in progress. See Tera Term home page for currently available add-on modules.

Q. DEC Special Graphics (like Box-drawing characters) ("Tera Special" font characters) are not displayed properly.
A. Refer to DEC Special Graphics
If "Tera Special" font does not display properly, reinstall it.
Remove the "Tera Special" font from "Fonts" of Control Panel, restart the system and reinstall the "Tera Special" font manually at "Fonts" of Control Panel.

Q. When Box-drawing characters in DEC Special Graphics ("Tera Special" font characters) are displayed, a "line" character does not match with an "angle" character smoothly.
A. Refer to DEC Special Graphics
When "Tera Special" font is used to display Box-drwing characters, the font is scaled to fit the size of normal character font. Depending on the scaling factor, this mismatch problem may occur. Please find a good choice of font and size for normal characters which does not cause this problem.

Q. Why number of fonts in the list of [Setup] Font dialog box is so small?
Q. Why I can not select the "Times" font at the [Setup] Font dialog box?
A. Tera Term uses only fixed-pitch fonts such as "Terminal" and "Courier" because characters should be displayed with equal spacing in order to emulate the VT terminal properly. Displaying proportional font characters with equal spacing is in principle possible but it makes program complicated and slow. So Tera Term does not use proportional fonts.
A.On Windows7, the font dialog uses the current user's show/hide font settings to determine the font list to display. This will result in the display of fewer font lists in most instances. To disable font hiding, users should go to the Font Settings page in the Fonts CPL and no-select the "Hide fonts based on language settings" check-box.

Q. How to change the behavior of text selection by mouse double clicking?
A. See "Delimiters of a word selected by double clicking".

Q. The "at" command of Windows NT does not work for executing Tera Term.
A. Specify "/interactive" option for the "at" command.

Q. The window title can not change by using the /W= of the command line option and the settitle macro command.
A. Some Linux distributions overwrite the window title after the current users' changing. To prevent this behavior, try either one of the following two methods:

A user configures the user's shell settings to disable sending the control sequence for the window title changing.
A user turns off the "Accept Window Title Change Request" on the General tab of the [Setup]Additional Setting "General" tab.

Q. Window content is cleared when window is resized.
A. To prevent this behavior, turn off [Setup]-[Additional settings]-[General]-[Clear display when window resized].

Q. Content of log file is not same as displayed in VTWindow. Character that is not able to displayed is outputted.
A. VTWindow displays result of received data which is parsed by control sequence. On the other hand, log file is a record of received data.
Therefore "content of log file" is not become same as "displayed content in VTWindow." It is similar that "HTML file" and "result of rendering by web browser" is different.

Example:
keyboard input
- type `l'
- type `s'
- type BS
- type ` '(SPACE)
- type BS
- type `s'
- type ENTER

display to VTWindow
```
ls
CMakeLists.txt  Makefile  README-j     cygterm.cpp  cygterm_cfg.cpp  sub.cpp
COPYING         README    cygterm.cfg  cygterm.ico  cygterm_cfg.h    sub.h
sf-usr-shell:~/cygterm+$ 
```

Text log (BS from keyboard input is not displayed, but SPACE is displayed. TAB is displayed as it is.)
```
ls s
CMakeLists.txt	Makefile  README-j     cygterm.cpp  cygterm_cfg.cpp  sub.cpp
COPYING		README	  cygterm.cfg  cygterm.ico  cygterm_cfg.h    sub.h
sf-usr-shell:~/cygterm+$ 

Binary log (All keyboard input is displayed. TAB is displayed as it is.)
```
ls s
CMakeLists.txt	Makefile  README-j     cygterm.cpp  cygterm_cfg.cpp  sub.cpp
COPYING		README	  cygterm.cfg  cygterm.ico  cygterm_cfg.h    sub.h
sf-usr-shell:~/cygterm+$ 
```

[About Tera Term 5]

Q. Can the configuration file(TERATERM.INI) be shared with Tera Term 4?
A. Tera Term 5 can read TERATERM.INI for Tera Term 4. Tera Term 5 converts TERATERM.INI to UTF-16 with LE BOM(UTF-16LE BOM). Tera Term 4 using the ANSI(not Unicode) API can also read/write Unicode ini files because the OS converts the character encoding. But, if the characters cannot be converted in ANSI/Unicode, characters will be breaked. And, Windows 9x does not have a character code conversion function in API, Unicode version ini files cannot be used. Please also refer to the API behavior.